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Back to the Moon - Opinion - International Herald Tribune

Three years after President George W. Bush announced an ambitious long-term goal to return astronauts to the Moon and then send them on to Mars, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has finally put some flesh on his nebulous aspirations. This week, the agency announced plans to establish a permanent base on the Moon by 2024, explained why Americans should want to send astronauts back to a world they visited repeatedly more than three decades ago, and described what they might do when they get there. It was belated justification for a decision that the Bush administration and Congress have already made. But the payoff is distant and the likely future costs very high, leaving it unclear how realistic these aspirations will prove to be.

The agency has done a commendably thorough job by consulting some 1,000 experts and 13 other space agencies in fashioning its plans. Such a costly and difficult venture should ideally be pursued cooperatively with other nations, to share the costs and the risks. It would be especially desirable to have multiple ways of reaching the Moon in case the American program runs into problems like those that grounded the shuttles.

What's worrisome about the new plans is their lack of focus. The agency cites six major reasons for returning to the Moon. The most persuasive is to use the Moon as a base to test technologies and operating techniques to be used on future missions to Mars, a more compelling target. It makes sense to first try "living off the land" on the Moon, where astronauts are only days away from home should something go wrong, before taking the long leap to Mars. The venture is also justified on scientific, economic, educational and global partnership grounds, and as a step toward eventual settlements on the Moon.

The wide sweep of these rationales is reminiscent of the extravagant promises for the space station, which was sold to Congress as a steppingstone to the planets, a scientific and economic bonanza, and a stimulus for students but is still limping along, half finished and far over budget, with greatly diminished expectations for what it can accomplish.

An even more expansive document — listing some 180 objectives that the astronauts might pursue on the Moon — is essentially a wish list compiled after consulting virtually every expert in the world who might have an opinion. The list puts the lie to criticisms that there is almost nothing useful to do on the Moon. But some of the objectives have a pie-in-the-sky quality, like exporting power from the Moon for use on Earth, while others, like observatories on the Moon, might not prove feasible or affordable for decades. The objectives will need to be winnowed and focused if they are to serve as useful guides in pursuing the program.

If the United States is to continue a human space flight program it makes sense to pick a more exciting destination than a space station circling endlessly in low Earth orbit. Our main concern is that the political proponents of the Moon-Mars adventure will not provide money commensurate with the task. NASA's crowning scientific achievements have come from its unmanned probes to distant worlds and its orbiting observatories. It would be a shame if an underfinanced program to return to the Moon on a permanent basis and then venture on to Mars forced reductions in research programs of higher scientific value.

A version of this article appears in print on November 10, 2006, in The International Herald Tribune. Today's Paper|Subscribe